Into the Rain
by cadetwolf
Summary: Athelstan and Lagertha find solace in one another in the wake of their grief.
1. Chapter 1

Athelstan couldn't eat.

He hadn't been able to keep much down after watching Gyda's small body wither away under flames and into the sea. The thought of her face melting away into her skeleton haunted him in the night. He'd never been very good at dealing with death, even at the monastery. If he thought about it too much, he'd begin to feel mad, terrified at the thought of non-existence. Every sacrificial ritual he witnessed punctured more holes into his Holy Book. Even the carcasses of the slaughtered animals made his palms sweat.

He couldn't shake away the sight of Gyda's still, open eyes. He tried instead to picture Gyda embraced by God. Gyda with wings. Gyda in the company of Jesus Christ.

He couldn't.

"You need to eat," Lagertha said, pulling him out of his thoughts. She nudged the porridge bowl toward him and raised an eyebrow. "You'll fall ill again. You're still weak."

He tore a piece of bread and placed it in his mouth. It was dry. Lagertha had little patience for cooking even before the sickness. Now, she made Siggy cook. Siggy, a former jarl's wife, was not much better.

Lagertha wasn't faring much better than he, Athelstan thought, but she handled grief admirably. He wasn't sure what he expected from her, but at the sight of her dead daughter, she had just closed her eyes, muttered under her breath, knelt down and kissed Gyda's cold forehead. She didn't even cry when Gyda floated out onto the sea. She hadn't cried, either, when her maids had buried the infant in the middle of the night. She didn't cry when Ragnar was away for months on end.

She never cried, not like he did. He wept in fits for days after the sickness was over, shaken by his close brush with death. He nearly died in a fever, huddled in blankets on the ground in a foreign land. He likely would have, too, had Lagertha-was it her? Or had he only imagined it was her?-not spooned ale into his mouth to keep him hydrated, or broth to keep him fed.

He knew that it was not God who saved him, but a very real woman with warm hands, who smelled of the forest floor after a rainstorm-earthy, clean, perfumed by leaves, kissed by dew. He would never say it aloud. He could barely let the thought pass through his mind without an all-encompassing wave of guilt, insecurity and shame. But the thought persisted.

Still, he noticed how she pushed around her porridge, distracted. She stared into the bowl. Athelstan noticed smudges of dirt and soot on her face and neck. The large washbasin, brought into the house after Ragnar was named jarl, hadn't been used in a week.

He thought of her bathing, naked and wet, cloaked by steam rising from the hot water into the cold air.

He stifled a moan, felt the blood rush to his cheeks, and shoveled porridge into his mouth.

Lagertha didn't even miss Ragnar this time around.

When he had set sail on his first voyage, her body ached for days. She tossed and turned during the night, anxious for his safety. At least then, though, she'd had Bjorn and Gyda by her side to help with managing the farm. They kept her busy, made her laugh. If Ragnar dies at sea, she'd thought, at least I have my children-the product of our love.

But now she was alone. She had cherished the days with only Gyda and Athelstan around after Ragnar had left her without so much as a half-hearted embrace. It was easier without him and Bjorn around, she admitted only to herself. Ragnar was a passionate lover but he was also intense and impatient. His cold response to the loss of the baby had brought their love to a standstill, unlike any dispute they'd ever had before. And Bjorn, while kinder to his mother and sister, was not always kind to the townsfolk who came to Lagertha and Ragnar with their ailments and concerns.

But the days with Gyda and Athelstan were consoling for her in the wake of her grief. The two were alike, she'd thought, while watching them play in the woods-both kind, soft-hearted, fond of animals and plants. The priest was good to Gyda, patient with her. Ragnar was fond of his daughter, but had little tolerance for the musings of children. Neither the priest nor her daughter were made for this difficult life-their hands were slow to callus, their feet quick to ache; she'd seen them exchange bandages for blisters-but somehow they persisted without complaint. She admired that more than she had admired Ragnar's ambition.

Now she was a jarl's wife. Ragnar had forced Lagertha into a new life with new responsibilities but also new threats. She'd taken to her new leadership role well, earning the respect of the people far more quickly and sincerely than Siggy ever had. Even Siggy herself acknowledged that. Lagertha had become the queen of the people.

But the emptiness in her stomach threatened to consume her. First, the son who left her womb before he was whole. And then the daughter, who died like she lived-peaceful, quiet and selfless. And the townsfolk-the bearded men who gathered wood, the women with long braids who dared to smile at Lagertha and left her loaves of sweet-smelling bread in baskets. And her stubborn husband and loyal son, far away, likely instigating a war.

Outside of the home, it rained. She loved the rain, took solace in it. It cleaned her, soothed her in the night. It helped her appreciate and revel in the warm hearth, the soft furs that covered her bed, the sturdy dresses her and Gyda had woven.

She watched as the priest spooned porridge into his mouth and swallowed with his eyes closed and his hands closed into fists. When he opened his eyes, he started at her gaze, surprised by her stare.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

Lagertha blinked-she had often asked that of others, but couldn't remember the last time she had been asked. Behind the priest's face, the rain was beginning to pool in the open door way. She was suddenly aware of the soot and dust and dirt on her skin. It felt like a chain.

"I am going to the river," she said, standing and smoothing out the front of her dress. "Would you like to join me?"


	2. Chapter 2

They were nearly a mile into the forest before she realized that the priest had forgotten a cloak.

"Are you mad?" she asked, halting and removing the fur-collared cloak from her shoulders. "You'll catch sickness again in this rain."

He flinched when she touched his shoulder. He shook his head when she offered the cloak. Raindrops dripped from his hair and onto his chest. She pressed it into his hands and raised an eyebrow. She used to give Gyda and Bjorn the same look. He consented, and pulled the cloak around his shoulders.

It felt strange looking out for another person. In the days after Gyda's death, Lagertha felt hints of what it had felt like before she was a wife, a mother, a leader. She remembered being a young girl, unburdened by men or children. She remembered the days of bathing alone in the river, making necklaces by candlelight, learning how to braid her own hair.

But then she thought of her daughter's soft voice, the gentle touch of her hand. Gyda would never be a woman, would never make love with a man or feel a child's movement in her womb. Gyda was so unlike her brother, her father, and even Lagertha. There were moments when Lagertha wondered if Gyda's kindness was a weakness, and if that weakness is what killed her. _Could she not have fought harder against the sickness?_she thought_. Did she just give up?__I raised my children to be strong._

But Gyda had never been a fighter, even among other children who fought over toys and animals. She preferred flowers and dresses to conflict. Even as an infant, she'd had a faraway look in her eyes. Perhaps her soft-spoken daughter belonged instead in the presence of the gods.

_And where do_I_belong?_ Lagertha wondered. She hadn't had word from her husband or son in weeks. She tended to her daily tasks in a daze. She tasted nothing from food, fell asleep only to be wakened by visions of her daughter laughing, nightmares of her son injured in battle, memories of her husband's lovemaking. She was neither tired nor restful. Was this her future? An eternity of hopelessness?

She looked at the priest walking in silence beside her. He stared down at his feet as he walked, his hand in his pocket fingering the cross he carried with him always. He was always pensive.

"What does the future hold for me, Priest?" she asked him. He stopped walking and looked at her. The sunlight on his wet hair turned his face into a halo.

_Perhaps this is what God looks like_, she thought.

Emotions cycled on his face—surprise, dismay, uncertainty—and settled on sympathy.

"I can't predict God's will," he answered.

At the sight of his earnest face, she began to cry.

"What does the future hold for me, Priest?" she asked him.

Athelstan's stomach clenched. What do you say to a woman who has lost everything and still must be so much for so many people?

He didn't know what to say. He had often asked himself the same question-would he die here, in this strange place? Alone and old and among heathens? Or would God appear to him at long last? When Ragnar was around, Athelstan was on edge. These men were quick to fight and kill. Any moment could be his last. He'd barely escaped the sacrifice. Lagertha had said afterward that Ragnar was out of his mind—nothing had been the same since she'd lost the child. He feared Ragnar, feared Rollo, even Bjorn, at times.

And the cross in his pocket did not give him much comfort anymore.

"I can't predict God's will," he stammered, immediately regretting it. Wasn't it his Christian duty to comfort a woman in her moment of pain? But somehow he couldn't lie to her.

Lagertha turned her face away from him. The sun behind her highlighted the profile of her face, illuminating the curve of her lips. Her drenched braids, now a darkened gold, framed her pale face. A breeze pushed wet tendrils across her brow and mouth.

Again he felt the tightness in his gut, a feeling he'd only ever felt once before when he'd felt Thyri's warm breath in his ear as she prepared him for sacrifice. He'd nearly succumbed to ecstasy merely from Thyri's voice and her proximity to him.

And then Lagertha began to cry, and he nearly succumbed again.

He'd always found Lagertha beautiful from the moment he saw her, the same way he found the paintings and sculptures of Mary beautiful. She was a legend, Ragnar had said to him on the ship, and Athelstan believed it. It wasn't just her golden hair, her full lips, or her knowing eyes that seemed to find him even in a room full of people. He found her beautiful when she spoke kindly to children in the village, when she ladled stew into his bowl, when she came back from the river, arms heavy with fish. She worked hard for her life, cared fiercely for her family and the townsfolk who looked up to her for justice and mercy. He had found her most beautiful when she told the stories of her gods, late in the night, her face aglow from the fire.

But he never expected to find her so striking in this moment of unhinged grief. She didn't sob while she cried—she just turned her face to the sun, peeking through the curtains of rain. The light caught in her blue eyes and became a beacon of color on her pallid face. If he hadn't seen the corners of her eyes, he wouldn't have noticed her tears, streaming down her face in unison with the rain.

_This is what a goddess looks like_, he thought.

He moved toward her, instinctively, and she turned to him again, reaching her arms out to embrace him. She embraced him hard, her hand on the back of his head with her fingers grasping at his hair, her cold cheek pressed against his. He sighed into her shoulder. How good it felt to be held by another, he thought. Despite the rain, he could feel the heat from her body. He felt her wet braids under his palm and wanted to tangle his fingers in it, wrap himself around her with arms and legs.

When she started to pull away, he caught her by the mouth, and kissed her.


End file.
